Ion Iliescu

Ion Iliescu (3 March 1930-) was President of Romania from 22 December 1989 to 29 November 1996 (succeeding Nicolae Ceausescu and preceding Emil Constantinescu) and from 20 December 2000 to 20 December 2004 (succeeding Constantinescu and preceding Traian Basescu).

Biography
Ion Iliescu was born in Oltenita, Romania in 1930. He joined the Romanian Communist Party at the age of 15 and studied at Moscow University from 1950 to 1953 to become an electrical engineer. Back in Romania, from 1956 to 1960 he served as chairman of the Communist Students' League and, after further work for the Communist Party, he served as First Secretary of the Youth League from 1967 to 1970 and as Secretary for Propaganda in 1971. In the same year he fell out with Nicolae Ceausescu and demoted to the provinces. In 1979, he was appointed head of the National Water Council, with a seat in Ceausescu's Council of State. He was widely tipped as a successor to Ceausescu, but perhaps because of this he was dismissed in 1984, deprived of party membership, and made director of a publishing company. A student colleague of Mikhail Gorbachev, he advocated the introduction of reform in 1987, and on 22 December 1989 he resurfaced to become head of the National Salvation Front. In elections on 20 May 1990 he was confirmed as President with 85% of the vote, and in October 1992 with over 60% of the vote, after considerable intimidation and violence. He was weakened by a split of the NSF in 1992, and thereafter presided over the Democratic National Salvation Front. This did little to endanger his position, as he continued to profit from the ongoing fragmentation and disunity of his opposition. In 1996, he was defeated for re-election by Emil Constantinescu, but he returned to power in 2000 and served one more term as president. In April 2018, he was charged with crimes against humanity during the deadly aftermath of the 1989 Romanian Revolution.